Washington Week Ahead: GOP looks to tax bill, moving nominees

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2017 - Congressional Republicans will set the stage this week to begin work on a $1.5 trillion tax-cut bill, while the Senate is poised to approve two more undersecretaries for the Agriculture Department.

The House is expected to approve a Senate-passed fiscal 2018 budget resolution this week that will allow use of the budget reconciliation process to move a tax bill through the Senate without Democratic support. The Senate-passed budget, unlike a version the House approved earlier this month, was good news for the next farm bill in that it would require no cuts in agriculture spending.

House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, praised House and Senate GOP leaders "for producing a final budget that preserves our ability to craft an effective, efficient farm bill while also allowing us to move forward with efforts to simplify the tax code.”

Early this week, the Senate is expected to approve the nominations of Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey and Nebraska Agriculture Director Greg Ibach as USDA undersecretaries.

Northey is being confirmed as undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services, a position that is being reworked. Perdue intends for him to serve as undersecretary for farm production and conservation, which would put Northey over the Natural Resources Conservation Service as well as the Farm Service Agency and the Risk Management Agency. The Foreign Agricultural Service, meanwhile, is being moved under the new undersecretary for trade, Ted McKinney.

The committee said in a letter to Perdue that Congress needs to pass legislation to allow the shift in Northey's duties.

Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., has said that the committee also could hold a hearing as soon as this week on President Trump’s only controversial USDA nominee so far, Sam Clovis, to be undersecretary for research, economics and education. Democrats say Clovis lacks the scientific qualifications to hold the position, and he also has come under fire for comments he made on a talk radio show he once hosted in Iowa.

Several other nominees important to agriculture could advance from committee this week: The Senate Finance Committee will vote Tuesday on the nomination of Gregg Doud to be chief agricultural negotiator for the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will vote Wednesday on three nominees to serve as assistant administrators who run key EPA divisions: Michael Dourson for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, William Wehrum for the Office of Air and Radiation, and David Ross to run the Office of Water.

Also this week, House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., is planning to move a bill to replace the H-2A farmworker visa program after overhauling the legislation to address concerns of Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, and other immigration hard-liners.

Goodlatte’s new version rolls back some planned protections for existing workers who are illegal immigrants.

Under the original version, the new H-2C visa program was scheduled to take effect in two years and provide work authorization to illegal workers in the interim. The new version strips the work authorization language and implements the new program in six months. The new version also drops a provision allowing existing workers to qualify for up to 10,000 green cards annually.

Other provisions in the new version shrink the H-2C program from 500,000 to 450,000 visas and would require employers to provide health insurance to visa holders.

The committee is scheduled to vote on the guestworker bill Tuesday in tandem with separate legislation that would require all employers to use the E-Verify system to check the legal status of hires.

Here’s a list of agriculture- or rural-related events scheduled for this week in Washington and elsewhere:

10 a.m. - Senate Finance Committee meeting to vote on three nominations, including that of Gregg Doud to be chief agricultural negotiator, and hearing to consider the nomination of Kevin McAleenan to be commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, 215 Dirksen.

This week’s guest on Open Mic is Rod Hebrink, President and CEO of Compeer Financial. The lack of certainty from a new farm bill and weak commodity prices due to lost export markets and robust supplies have left farmers and lenders with a grim outlook for 2019. In this interview, Hebrink discusses the challenge of the unknown and the need for legislators and the White House to take action on farm policy, trade and regulations to help rural America prepare for the year ahead.

The world of agriculture extends beyond what’s growing in your field or living in your barn, and here at Agri-Pulse, we understand that. We make it our duty to inform you of the most up-to-date agricultural and rural policy decisions being made in Washington D.C. and examine how they will affect you – the farmer, the lobbyist, the government employee, the educator, the consultant and the concerned citizen.